HOW THE REDEMPTION OPERATED
Introduction: There is some confusion today on how the redemption produces
its effect. It is not enough to say that Jesus redeemed us by dying, or
even that He was obedient. These are of course true. But we must penetrate
much more deeply.
Part of the trouble comes from the metaphor used by St. Paul in 1 Cor 6:20
and 7:23 about the "price" of redemption. If a price was paid, to whom was
it paid? It would seem at first it should go to the captor - but the captor
was satan. We cannot imagine the blood of Christ being paid to satan. Nor
was it paid to the Father, for He was not the captor. So what is the
answer?
Distinctions are needed at the outset, between objective and subjective
redemption. The objective redemption is the work of once-for-all earning a
claim to all forgiveness and grace. The subjective redemption is the
process of giving out that forgiveness and grace through all subsequent
ages, including our own.
Since we will add data on Our Lady's cooperation, we notice that she
cooperated in both objective and subjective redemption. But as to the
objective redemption: was her cooperation remote (furnishing the humanity
in which He could die) or also immediate (some sort of share in the great
sacrifice itself). After that we would add a third question: If she did
share in the great sacrifice, what was the nature of the sharing?
Three aspects or modes: The objective redemption is a rich reality. So
there are three ways of looking at it:
a) Sacrifice: We can gather the nature of sacrifice from Isaiah
29:13: "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts
are far from me." We see there are two elements: the outward
sign, and the interior dispositions. The outward sign is there
to express and perhaps even promote the interior dispositions.
But without the interior, it is worthless as we see in Isaiah.
We see from Romans 5:19 that the essential interior disposition
is obedience: "Just as by the disobedience of the one man (first
Adam) the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of the one
man (new Adam) the many will be constituted just." "Lumen
gentium" P3 agrees: "By His obedience He brought about
redemption." Without obedience, the death of Christ would have
been a tragedy, but not a redemption. It was obedience that gave
it its value.
We are still left with a question: Why did obedience to the Father call for
something so tremendously difficult and painful?
b) New Covenant: In a covenant, each party pledges something.
The things should be of at least approximately equal value.
Since the price of redemption was of infinite worth, that to
which the Father obligated Himself would be similarly infinite,
i.e., an inexhaustible treasury of forgiveness and grace. G.
Philips of Louvain, one of the chief drafters of "Lumen
gentium," in his commentary on LG PP 61-62 has noticed that
graces are not like jewels: one cannot put them in a box. So
what this really means is a claim to grace and forgiveness, to
be given out at the suitable times.
This claim is not only inexhaustible for our race as a whole, but as Gal
2:20 shows, there is an infinite objective title for each individual human
being: "He loved me,and gave Himself for me." The fact that this is true
not only of St.Paul -a special person - but of all of us is brought out in
"Gaudium et spes" P22: "...each one of us can say with the Apostle: The Son
of God loved me,and gave Himself for me." So there is an infinite objective
title for each individual human being, generated by His obedience. (This
does not imply one could have a spree of sin,and plan to pull up in time.
No, such a plan would fail for two reasons:
1) since the change at the end was preplanned, it would not be a
real change or repentance, which is change of heart;
2) a spree of sin is apt to cause hardness,which prevents graces
offered by God from getting in). But the question still remains:
Why did obedience call for something so immense?
c) Rebalance or restoration of the objective order: The answer to the
question begins to appear now. Pope Paul VI, in the doctrinal introduction
to the constitution on indulgences of Jan 1, 1967, began by pointing out
(AAS 59.5): "For the correct understanding of this doctrine...it is
necessary that we recall certain truths which the universal Church,
illumined by the word of God, has always believed." This is a significant
statement. Paul VI tell us that what he is about to present is part of the
universal belief of the Church. But that belief is infallible (cf. LG 12).
On p. 6.2: "As we are taught by divine revelation, penalties follow on sin,
inflicted by the divine Holiness and justice...." It is important to note
that Holiness is put in the first place. The old theory of St. Anselm on
the redemption unfortunately said God had to provide satisfaction for sin.
Of course not! God does not have to do anything. Further, Anselm focused on
the justice of God. Now that is not wrong, but the more basic consideration
is His holiness, put in first place by the text of Paul VI. For if we
center our thought on justice, some objectors may say: "When someone
offends me, I do not always demand full justice. Why cannot God just be
nice about it?" The answer is, that even though He could do that way, His
love of what is objectively right urges Him to provide that rebalance.
So Paul VI continues: "For every sin brings with it a disturbance of the
universal order, which God arranged in unspeakable wisdom and infinite
love." In other words, God being Holiness itself, loves everything that is
right. This was a striking idea when it first broke on the world. For the
gods of Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome were not just immoral but amoral -they
acted as if there were no morality at all. But Psalm 11:7 told the world:
"God is sadiq [morally righteous] and He loves the things that are morally
right." Hence the notion that sin is a debt which the Holiness of God wants
paid.
Simeon ben Eleazar, a Rabbi writing about 170 A.D. ("Tosefta, Kiddushin"
1.14), and claiming to base himself on Rabbi Meir from earlier in the same
century, gives us a striking comparison which helps to illustrate the text
of Paul VI: "He [meaning "anyone"] has committed a transgression. Woe to
him. He has tipped the scale to the side of debt for himself and for the
world."
The image is a two-pan scales.The sinner takes from one pan what he has no
right to have. The scale is out of balance. The Holiness of God wants it
righted. How do that? If he stole some property, he begins to rebalance by
giving it back. If he stole a pleasure, he begins to rebalance by giving up
some pleasure of similar weight.
But we kept saying "begins". For the imbalance from even one mortal sin is
infinite, an Infinite Person is offended. So if the Father wanted a full
rebalance - He did not have to - the only way to achieve it would be to
send a divine Person to become man. That Person could produce an infinite
value. Paul VI put the redemption into this framework.
Since the chief topic of this constitution was that of indulgences, which
depend on the "treasury of the Church" Paul VI spoke of the redemption in
that background. He said the "treasury of the Church is the infinite and
inexhaustible price which the expiations and merits of Christ the Lord have
before God...."
All sinners of all times took an immense weight from the two-pan scales.
But Jesus gave up far more than they had stolen, in His terrible passion.
So this is the price of redemption, the rebalancing of the objective order,
which the Holiness of God willed. Rom 5:8 said, "God proved His love."
Yes,if someone desires the well-being of another, and starts out to procure
it, but then runs into an obstacle - if a small obstacle will stop him,the
love is small. If it takes a great obstacle, the love is great. But if that
love could overcome even the immense obstacle of the terrible death of
Jesus,that love is immense, beyond measure. It was not only the physical
pain, but the rejection by those whom He loved that hurt HIm. The pain of
rejection can be measured by two things:
1) how severe is the form of the rejection;
2) how great is the love for the one who is rejecting. If
someone jostles me in a crowd,that is a small thing. But if he
wanted to kill me, that is far worse, and if he means to do it
in the most hideous way possible - then the rejection is at the
peak .And what is His love?: Inasmuch as He is a Divine Person,
the love is infinite; in as much as we consider the love of His
human will,able to overcome such a measureless obstacle - the
love is beyond measure.
In the garden He foresaw all sins of all times, and suffered from that
vision. Let us recall all that we saw in commenting on NC PP471-74 on His
foreknowledge and life-long anxiety, resulting from the vision His soul saw
from the first instant of conception, and which He let us see briefly in
Lk.12:50 and John 12:27. In line with this, Pius XI,wrote in his Encyclical
"Miserentissimus Redemptor" (AAS 20.174): "Now if the soul of Christ [in
Gethsemani] was made sorrowful even to death on account of our sins, which
were yet to come, but which were foreseen, there is no doubt that He
received some consolation from our reparation, likewise foreseen."
So now we see why obedience called for something so tremendous. Yes, even
the least thing done by an Infinite Person could rebalance. In fact,the
Father could have accepted an incomplete rebalance, from any religious act
He might order to be done by an ordinary human.He could have been content
with the incarnation in a palace since, again, any act of an Infinite
Person is infinite in value. But the Father wanted not only to be able to
forgive, but to forgive lavishly. (The priest in giving absolution,can wipe
out even a lifetime of dreadful sins in a moment: "I absolve you.") So He
went beyond the incarnation in a palace, to the stable,beyond an
incarnation with only a prayer,to the horrible death of the cross.The first
thing Jesus had to say to His Apostles when He first came after His
resurrection was "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them." He
had just paid a terrible price for that forgiveness. He could hardly wait,
we might say, to make that concretely possible.
Our Lady's Cooperation in the Redemption: So immense was the love of the
Father and the Son that as long as there was any way to make things more
rich for our race, and more rich for objective goodness, it seems He would
not stop short of using it. He could have, as we said, used any religious
act done by any ordinary person for the whole of redemption, though it
would be finite. But it is as if He, after going to infinity beyond
infinity (for an incarnation in a palace would have been infinite) He
recalled that, and decided to add the less than infinite, yet immense, value
of the sufferings of the Mother of the Redeemer.
a) Remote Cooperation: This consists in furnishing,in faith the
flesh by means of which He could die. This entailed suffering
even from the annunciation on. To say that her Son would be son
of the Most High would not tell her much, for any devout Jew
could be called a son of God. But as soon as Gabriel told her
her Son would "reign over the house of Jacob forever" then, not
just the one full of grace, but ny ordinary Jew would grasp it:
she could not help knowing He was to be the Messiah, for only He
was to reign forever. Then all the messianic prophecies would
come to mind, if not at once,surely while pondering in her
heart. She would know He was to be born at Bethlehem, that He
was to be called wonderful counsellor, God the mighty,
Everlasting Father, Prince of peace. But she would also
know,even before the prophecy of the sword from Simeon,that He
would have to suffer terribly and die, from Isaiah 53. The
Jews,probably a bit later, distorted that text since they could
not believe the Messiah would suffer - for they knew it referred
to the Messiah. But she would not distort it.She knew the
prophecy which He Himself recited on the cross: They have
pierced my hands and my feet..they have cast lots for my
garments. All this would come to mind as well as the strange
line of Zechariah 12:10: "They shall look upon me,whom they have
pierced,and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only
son.
Someone may object: Many prominent scholars today are uncertain about the
sense of these prophecies, and even say they can be understood only by
seeing them fulfilled in Christ.But we know the ancient Jews did better
than our Catholic scholars, thanks to the Targums - ancient Aramaic
versions, very free for the most part,and with fill-ins showing how the
Jews understood them.They did all this without seeing them fulfilled in
Christ -whom they hated. Further, a great Jewish Scholar today, Jacob
Neusner, in his book, "Messiah in Context," reviewed every piece of Jewish
writing from after 70 A.D.until the Babylonian Talmud, 500-600 A.D. He
found up to that Talmud, no interest any more in the Messiah. In the Talmud
interest returns, but speaks of only one classic point, He is to come from
the line of David. Hardly could the Targum interpretations have been
written in literally centuries when there was no interest. So the
Targums,at least in oral form, must have been around before 70 A.D. Some
think the beginnings are in the time of Ezra in the 5th century B.C.
Had Our Lady heard the Targums? Yes, they were always given in the
synagogue right after the reading of the Hebrew text. All the above texts
except Zechariah and Psalm 21 were marked as messianic by the Targums. But
even if she had not heard them: if the stiff-necked Jews could see so much
,what would the one who was full of grace see!
And there are more, especially Genesis 49:10: "The scepter shall not depart
from Judah until Shiloh comes." The same Jewish Neusner quotes this text on
p. 242 and asks how the text could be seen as anything other than
messianic!. Yet so many Catholic scholars cannot see what even a Jew can
see! So our Lady surely saw that the time for the Messiah was at hand, for
in her day for the first time, a ruler from the tribe of Judah was lacking:
the Romans imposed Herod on them instead.
So it was not easy to be the mother of the Redeemer!
b) Immediate cooperation: We distinguish two questions here:
1) Did she in some way cooperate in the great sacrifice
itself? Definitely yes. There are 17 texts from Popes and
Vatican II, every Pope from Leo XIII including John Paul II
which clearly state that.
2) In what did that cooperation consist? Vatican II in LG
P54 said it did not intend to settle debates in Mariology.
Yet there is strong reason to believe it did more than it
realized.Such a thing is possible. In LG P55 it made clear
that it was not sure that the human writers of Genesis 3:15
and of Isaiah 7:14 saw all the Church now sees in those
texts.The prophecy of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-33
is so worded that most likely Jeremiah thought the required
obedience was to be that of the people - as it had been at
Sinai. Yet really it refers to the obedience of Christ.
Also, St. Irenaeus compared all sin to a complex knot, said
to untie it we take the end of the rope back through every
turn taken in tying it: then it is untied. After that it
added a line cited by Vatican II in LG P56: "thus then the
knot of the disobedience of Eve was untied through the
obedience of Mary." But the untying was not done until the
great sacrifice, even though St. Irenaeus seems to be
thinking just of the annunciation. So he seems to have
written more than he realized, as a Father of the Church
writing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
What were the chief debates at the start of Vatican II on her cooperation
in the objective redemption?. Two positions:
1) The Germans want to say her role was only "active
receptivity", as if I put out my hand, that is active, then take
up something I had no share in producing. So that is all she
could do, really contributing nothing to the immediate objective
redemption.
2) Her obedience joined to His, to form the covenant condition,
obedience, the element without which His death would have been
only a tragedy,not a redemption. We saw the words of LG P56 on
the knot, untied by obedience. In the sentence just before that
in LG P56 the Council quoted St. Irenaeus: "By obeying,she
became a cause of salvation for herself and for the human race."
Finally ,in LG P 61: "In suffering with Him as He died on the
cross, she cooperated in the work of the Savior,in an altogether
singular way, by obedience, faith, hope and burning love, to
restore supernatural life to souls." So three times the Council
said her cooperation was by way of obedience. But that, as we
said, was taking part in the covenant condition, in that which
gave all the value to His sacrifice.
The difficulty of this obedience for her was immense. John Paul II, in
"Mater Redemptoris" PP 18-19 explained that her "obedience of faith" then
was heroic, part of the greatest self-emptying in history. For any soul,
when it knows what God positively wills, should positively will the same.
She knew that it was the positive will of the Father - and of her Son -
that He should die, die then, die so horribly. So, in spite of her love,
she was called on to positively will that He die, die then, die so
horribly. What was her love? We know that holiness and love are
interchangeable terms. But Pius IX in "Ineffabilis Deus," said that even at
the start of her life, her holiness was so great that "none greater under
God can be thought of, and only God can comprehend it." Then not even the
highest Seraphim can understand her love. But she had to will His death in
spite of a literally incomprehensible love! This is indeed cooperation in
redeeming us, at what a price!. Really this was all a continuation of her
"fiat" to the will of the Father, first expressed at the annunciation,
extending even to such an incomprehensible length.
Why did the Father employ her? In willing the incarnation, He necessarily
had to provide a Mother - Our Lady, but He did not really have to use her
for anything else. Yet the Church shows that He did so decide.
Why? Our Father loves everything that is good, and as St. Thomas says
(I.19.5.c) He loves to have one thing in place to provide a reason or title
for doing or giving the next thing. For this reason He wanted to make the
titles for redemption as full as possible. Yes, the work of Christ is
infinite, and in mathematics infinity plus a finite quantity does not grow.
But this is no the low ground of mathematics, but the high realm of divine
generosity, which will not stop without making everything as full as
possible. So He decided to use her in the objective redemption, as we
explained above.
Similarly the fullest titles are more beneficial for us,and He always keeps
together the two goals, what is objectively good, and what is beneficial
for our race.
Her role in the subjective redemption:
a) Mediatrix: From the fact that she shared with Him in earning
all graces, it is clear that at least in that sense,she has a
share in distributing them all. We said above that there are 17
documents form Popes and Vatican II telling that she cooperated
immediately in the objective redemption. And we saw that it was
essentially by way of a most costly obedience. There are even
more official texts speaking of her as the Mediatrix.
Many of the texts add the words "of all graces" or an equivalent. Vatican
II itself did not add those words, yet in a footnote on LG P62 it referred
us to some of the many earlier texts that do say that. The reason at
Vatican II was that Protestant observers had threatened to break off
dialogue if the Council went far.
b) Her role in the Mass: John Paul II tells us she shares in
every Mass. In his address to the crowds in St.Peter's square on
Sunday Feb.12, 1984 he said (English "Osservatore Romano" Feb.
20, 1984, p. 10): "Today I wish to dwell with you on the Blessed
Virgin's presence in the celebration of the liturgy.... Every
liturgical action...is an occasion of communion...and in a
particular way with Mary. Because the Liturgy is the action of
Christ and of the Church...she is inseparable from one and the
other....Mary is present in the memorial - the liturgical action
- because she was present at the saving event... She is at every
altar where the memorial of the Passion and Resurrection is
celebrated, because she was present, faithful with her whole
being, to the Father's plan, at the historic salvific occasion
of Christ's death."
Let us fill this in. In the Mass as in every sacrifice, there are two
elements, the outward sign,and the interior dispositions. She shared in the
outward sign since the flesh and blood on the altar came from her. She
shares in the interior which is obedience, because even now in Heaven, her
will is still united with His and the Father's,as we saw above in speaking
of the time of His death. So the more closely one is united to Christ, the
more closely to her, and the more closely to her,the more closely to Christ
in the Mass.
Again, the reason for the Mass in general is what we explained above: The
Father is pleased to have titles as rich as possible. So too in the Mass.
Really, all forgiveness and grace was earned on Calvary. Nothing further
would be strictly required. Yet in His love of good order it pleases Him to
have a title for giving out those graces: that title is the Mass.
Other Saints in the subjective redemption: Only Our Lady took part in the
objective redemption,and did it "in an altogether singular way" as LG P61
said. But again, just as the Father is pleased to add her to make all the
titles as full as possible, for the sake of objective goodness, and for our
sake, similarly it pleases Him to add the role of the other Saints in the
work of giving out all graces.
Our participation in the subjective redemption:
The Mass is the center of all. In the Mass, the essential participation is
interior. To answer the prayers etc. is good, but if the interior is not
added, God will say again what He said through Isaiah 29:13: "This people
honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." The interior
participation of the people lies in two things, according to Pius XII,
"Mediator Dei:"
1) The people offer in as much as the priest who acts in "persona
Christi" also represents in this way them, who are His members;
2) They should unite their interior dispositions to His,
especially their obedience to the will of the Father in
acting,and in accepting the hardships that come with their daily
life. Vatican II, LG P34, calls these things, "spiritual
sacrifices."
Everything but sin can be turned into gold for eternity as a share in the
sufferings of Christ. Romans 8:28: "For those who love God, all things work
together for good." Even worry can be made part of this, for Christ worried
all His life long. His human soul saw the vision of God from conception,
and it showed Him everything He had to suffer. That was as it were eating
on Him, and He let us see inside in Lk 12:50 and John 12:27.
If we love Him,we will want to make reparation for offenses against Him, by
ourselves, and by others.
Some think that at Mass they should not think of Our Lady. Yet,as we saw
above with the help of John Paul II, she is involved in every Mass.
Therefore, objectively the more closely we are united with her, the more
closely with Him, and vice versa. This does not say that all are obliged to
cultivate so full a Marian form of devotion - there is a lawful diversity
of spiritual attractions.(Cf. for example St. Francis de Sales, a polished
gentleman, compared to St. Benedict Joseph Labre--who lived like a tramp.
Both followed the same basic rules of spirituality. Yet what a difference
on the secondary level)!